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[Soulless verse] Twisted hell: Epilogue
Chapter 1 | Chapter 53 ----- It stood there, at the edge of the worlds … Well, stood isn’t the right word since it has no legs … but who cares. It stood there, at the edge of the worlds, fulfilling its purpose. Observing unseen and protecting the mortals from their own foolishness. It arrived the moment it sensed the magic build up. A declining empire decided to open a portal to some other world, hoping plundered resources will shift the tide in its favor. These people decided to put the whole world at risk to erase their own mistakes, a choice the mortals love making when they don’t perform well. But it didn’t stop them, as it had no right to do so. Still, it wasn’t worried. It knew such an undertaking is massive in scope, which means many things can, and will, go wrong. It was ages since the last time someone dared to do something similar, and back then it was done by the people who were far more competent than this rabble. There was no doubt in its mind the spell will fail spectacularly at one point. Still, it had to give it to these people. Although they clearly lacked the talent when it comes to magic, they were at least aware of it, so they decided to take it slow. They poured magic slowly and carefully, throughout many moons. And it was there during all that time, observing unseen. The truth is, it had nothing better to do. Eventually, they managed to pour all the magic they needed in. It was time for the spell to be cast. Once again, they approached the problem carefully. The spell was cast much longer than it was supposed to, but it was worth it. The portal formed steadily. But once the portal opened, there were no plentiful, fertile lands to be seen on the other side. The spell failed and not in a way it has expected. Those fools managed to open a portal to hell. And a frozen one at that. The crippling cold rushed through the portal as soon as it opened, chilling everyone in an instant. The mortals scattered quickly, running for their lives. The satisfied looks of achievement the mages had on their faces once they realized they succeeded in opening the portal were replaced with pure dread once they’ve realized what they’ve done. It found all of it amusing though, for it knew there was no immediate danger on the other side. But something was unnerving about the other world, the frozen hell. It was unlike any other world it had peered into. It was there when opening the portals to the other worlds was a regular occurrence during the time of enlightenment, as the mortals call it, so it got a glimpse of many worlds. But not even the fiery hell the demons came from was similar to this one. You’d expect hells to be similar, but that wasn’t the case. The air of this frozen hell was … empty. There was nothing it could latch on to, there was no way for it to explore it. It could only look over the edge, going further into the nothingness would certainly spell its doom. Only once before has it seen a world it couldn’t explore, and that world was nothing like this frozen hell. In both of those cases, there was no magic in the world. And yet, both of them were full of life. At first glance, this new world appeared to be a frozen wasteland. Frozen water was everywhere. And yet, life was there, right in front of the portal. All around it. Since the worlds collided, a small window of magic forced itself into hell, just how the cold had forced itself into its world. And that meant it could step into hell. Just a little bit, but it was enough. Step … bad choice of words once again. Anyway, once it had entered the hell, it realized the portal had opened in the middle of a forest. And what a forest it was, a forest unlike any other. It was impressed with the trees. Although those trees weren’t splendorous as some trees from its own world, they were without a doubt the proudest trees it had ever felt. All of them were rugged and unmoving. They stood tall, big, and defiantly green. In a place devoid of any magic, without any fertile land, and in a freezing cold, these trees stood proudly, defying everyone and everything. Their very existence was a challenge to the gods, a dare to make anything similar and fail. Trees in hell … who would’ve thought? After a few days, animals appeared. Impressive beasts, strong and enduring. The chilling cold didn’t bother them at all. Their furs and hides were so thick, regular mortal weapons would have very little chance of piercing them. And even if they did, it would serve no other purpose but to enrage the beast, for its hulking frame could easily take such punishment. Seeing the beasts, it decided to give the mortals a hand (yeah, I know) and create an illusion on the other side. There was no magic in the other world, but there was enough of it along the edge to make a sustainable illusion along the entire portal. In a few moments, the spell was cast, and a mirage was created to cover up the portal from the other side. The side placed in its world looked like a regular portal, while on the other side the portal was hidden entirely. The only thing that could indicate something was odd was the lower amount of snow around the portal as a lot of it got thrown into its world. And an aura of dread it enchanted the portal with. “That should keep those beasts out,” it thought. It wasn’t proud of its work at all. There was nothing special about it in its mind. “It just needs to do its job.” With the illusion and the aura in place, the beasts lost interest in the portal. So, a few days passed where it did nothing besides admiring the trees on the other side. And eventually, they came. First, it heard the sound, the sound similar to the horses galloping in the sky. It couldn’t help but wonder: “Why would any creature gallop in the sky?The pegasi fly with their wings, they don’t need to use their legs.” Yet, the sound was the same as if the hooves were hitting the sky. It could hear whatever was galloping going around and around. Still, it was slowly getting closer and closer. Its assumption that something was hitting the sky was right, but it wasn’t the hooves. The sound was produced by the chariots, two of them. Flying chariots made from unnatural materials. It could sense the metals were mixed with all kinds of stuff to create a material far superior to what can be found in nature. And there they were, inside of those chariots. The demons. And just like everything in this hell, they were empty. Once it sensed the chariots properly, it quickly understood the principles those were working on. An insanely flammable fuel was being burned on top of the chariot, right above its passengers’ heads. The enormous heat produced that way was being converted into motion energy, which was then used to spin massive blades that would cut right through the air. These chariots were literally cutting their way through the air. Peering into the passengers’ minds, it understood their language quickly. And it was pleasantly surprised when it learned how they named the contraptions carrying them. Choppers. These demons seem quite logical and to the point. What surprised it even more was that all the passengers knew exactly how their flying chariots work. They knew they were sitting right below the burning inferno, which depended on unbelievable balance to work right. They knew the machinery could break easily and kill all of them. They even trained what to do once the inevitable happens and it does break. Yet, they didn’t care. There was no doubt in its mind the ones riding those infernal chariots were demons. Only the demons could show such disregard for their safety. Only the demons would trade their safety for convenience. For several days, those chariots were coming and going. And every time they’d come right at the portal’s position without fail. That’s because, although these demons were empty themselves, they’ve created contraptions that could detect energy for them. So, they knew something was there, in the woods. They just couldn’t see it due to the illusion. Eventually, once they realized they wouldn’t find anything from the skies, they sent some of them on foot. Since those chariots couldn’t land in the middle of a lush forest, frost demons showed once again just how little they care about their lives. They dropped their people, from the chariots flying in the sky, with nothing but a rope for the poor sods to hold onto. And it actually worked. The beasts scattered a long time ago, as soon as the flying chariots started circling around. The dread they felt told it everything it needed to know about these demons. Now the horrifying demons stalked the land, and no beast would dare oppose them. They found the portal very quickly, despite the illusion, which made sense. As soon as it understood those sky chariots, it knew it would be impossible to stop them from crossing the portal. The one thing that surprised it though was how easily they ignored the aura of dread coming from the enchantment. It felt their fear, but it didn’t expect them to feel excited about it. It could swear the demons enjoyed the spooky atmosphere. The way they found the portal can only be explained as a product of a stupidly genius idea. They noticed the amount of snow was much smaller in front of the portal, so they started throwing snowballs around. Soon enough, one disappeared right in front of their eyes. However, contrary to what people would expect the demons to do, they didn’t summon a horde to go on a rampage. These demons were very careful. First, they sent their crawling constructs, then their flying constructs. For several moons, they probed the other side while collecting the samples. Once they’ve realized there are people on the other side, the demons started communicating with them indirectly. The demons sent their books, so people on the other side knew what to expect. Surprisingly, they had no horns. The excitement these demons felt was very contagious, and it felt exhilarated as it observed them do their work. The enthusiasm the demons showed when solving all kinds of problems was beyond anything it felt before. The demons were eager to meet the people on the other side, not to conquer them but just to interact with them. One wouldn’t expect that from the creatures coming straight out of the hell, but it made perfect sense once it learned more about them. Now that the area around the portal has been secured, the demons started bringing their scholars in. And their minds revealed the truth of this hell to it. These demons, who call themselves humans, were eager to meet the other species because all the other sapient species of their world were exterminated a long time ago, by the very world they live in. In its insatiable hunger, the hell they live in had swallowed everyone else, and it waited eagerly for the day it will feast upon their species too. They were all alone in a dark, uncaring universe. That made it sympathetic towards them. Finally, a day came when the chosen one of their species was about to be sent to the other world. A perfect example of their species stood alone in front of the portal, defying the aura of dread surrounding it. But not because he was an incredibly courageous individual, the suit he was wearing made him immune to the aura. He wasn’t defying the aura himself. His people made it irrelevant through their collective labor. Armed with the will and the wit of his people, he was ready to close the gap between the two worlds and plunge everyone and everything into the unknown. “Ground control to Major Tom,” he heard an oddly melodic voice over the radio. “I hear you loud and clear, over!” “Ground control to Major Tom.” “I repeat, I hear you loud and clear, over. Can you hear me?” “Take your protein pills and put your helmet on.” “… the fuck are you talking about? I’m in a hazmat suit. Over!” “Ground control to Major Tom.” “…” “Commencing countdown, engines on.” “Are you fucking serious?” “Check ignitionnn and may god’s love be with youuuu.” ----- Bonus chapter ----- My Patreon Or, if you feel like doing a one-off donation with PayPal, you can do it here
Twilight Sage – d20PFSRD (get Animate Dead last) 3rd Party classes Necromancer – d20PFSRD (my class. Has a lot of cool things but a limited spell list of only necromancy spells. They’re from all different lists but not every necromancy spell available. I don’t have access to magic jar for example)
Races: the difference between blood and culture, and how backgrounds could fill in the gap
Dear Wizards of the Coast, today I woke up, took one look at Tasha's, and got really disapointed on how you missed an amazing chance to actually fix something you have been doing wrong for I don't know how many years. If you haven't figure it out yet, this text is about Races on 5th edition. To be honest, it's a mix of a rant and an idea. But, before you go bashing me, it's not a rant in the way you might think. I do not disagree with the intention behind the optional rules for races on Tasha's, the opposite. I just believe that the solution they gave is lazy, and not at all what the community actually wants. At least, that is not what I wanted. And, let me just say this, I do love 5th edition. Bounded Accuracy did so much for us that I honestly cannot stress enough how much 5th edition is already so much better than old and previous iterations of the game. But, 5th edition is old enough for us to see what is good, and what is bad with it. And this text is about what is wrong with races in D&D. Tl; Dr: Giving so much weight to races is a bad choice, and the reason why we have so many discussion about race right now. The term race is also a bad thing. Better to shift everything into backgrounds, which can be a lot more diverse in range, and stricter in scope, without actually classifying a whole species of sentient people as inhenrently dumb or inherently lawful. Warning: This is a really long text. Sorry for that.
What is a Race
I will not go deep into the scientific biological debate about wheter Races are real or just a social construct. Suffice to say, they are a social construct. At least, that's how the majority of the scientific community views the topic nowadays. Apart from being a social construct, and having no real biological implications, race is a term that can only be used on the same species/subspecies. Meaning: the use of Race in D&D, the word itself, is outright wrong. As long an Elf was made by deity XXX and Dwarvens were made by deity YYY, and Orcs by deity ZZZ—you get the point, they are not even the same species, and, therefore, can't be different races. But, I will give myself a counterpoint: Science in the world of D&D may not be developed enough for them to know this, so, they might incorrectly use the term Race. Yes, you can definetly say that. But that is lazy writing. See, in our own history, Humanity's history, Race was a term coined to identify a group of people with common ancestry and culture. Considering how the perceived notion of the word Race has become kinda of a deamening thing in real life, and the clear scientific categorization of the word doesn't match with the meaning used in the game, why not just use a different word? Like... Ancestry. Which had, if not the same, a pretty close historical meaning. And, as a broad term, to replace a structure such as "The Races of Forgotten Realms" you can always just use People.
"The People of Abeir-Toril includes many different ancestries, being the term people used to describe the many different species of humanoids that roam the lands. Among such ancestries, we have fantasy classics such as the Elves, the Dwarfs, Halflings, and we also have the imposing Dragonborns, the striking Tieflings, and the heavenly Aasimar. And many others. Your character's ancestry represents from where they came from, but, ultimately, not who they are."
But, If this is still not enough to challenge your views on how using the word Race is unnecessary. You can always remember that, considering the scientific development they probably have on steriotypical fantasy worlds (and how much of that knowledge is actually available to the masses), it's unlikely that two completely different species, with completely different origins (assuming the whole God XXX made YYY race—the whole theological origin of the species thing), would see each other as remotely the same to categorize them themselves sort of the same. A regular Elf would probably just go "We are elves, they are dwarfs", and would look at you thoroughly confused if you tried to imply that Elves and dwarfs are the same just because they are humanoids and both know how to speak. But, I digress. Discussing the word Race is not the reason why I'm actually here. I just believe is important to take this stone out of my way for starters.
Blood x Culture
I'm using blood here as a chronically accurate term for Genes, Genetics, DNA. Meaning: your blood is your genome. Considering the whole debate above, your blood is your species, and what that tells about you. Your blood is your ancestry. But, just because you came from a family of High Elf College Professors, doesn't mean you are actually a college professor. Being a High Elf is something that comes with your blood, being a college professor is not. This is the thing that D&D gets wrong. Take any race statblock, you'll always see the following information listed: Ability Score increases, Age, Alignment, Size, Speed, and Languages. Some of those things are what you get from your blood, some are what represents your culture. It's fine to tell that the average Dwarf lives up to 350 years of age, are medium size creatures between 4 and 5 feet tall, and have a speed of roughly 25 feet. Those are all biological information. It's not fine to tell that the average Dwarf is Lawful and speak dwarvish and common. Those are not stuff you get from your blood. To say that, you are actually saying that there is no cultural diversity or individuality between a whole group of people (the same applies for the Ability Score increases, but I'll talk about that later). And this is the thing that people gets pissed about. I understand the gamistic mind behind this though. It's actually a very simple concept:
It's a game, how can we make this so that a player only needs to interact with a few things to get an idea about who their character is?
It's a lot easier to just reduce the whole thing to its average or steriotypes and throw in a textbox saying that these are just the most common portraits of the people that live in the steriotypical fantasy world which D&D is aiming to create roleplaying rules for, and that you, the PlayeDM, have all the authority to change them at your discretion. But, here's the thing: That's Lazy Writing. But I'll come back to that later. Basically, what I am trying to say is that Ancestry and Culture shouldn't be banded as one thing, because they aren't one thing. What traits you get from your blood are not the same thing as the traits you get from the culture you were raised in, or the upbringing you had. Blood is not culture, and vice versa.
Why do we play D&D
There are literally thousands of TRPGs out there, and even if some of them have not been published in your language, that still lives you with thousands of choices. And I think I am grossly underestimating those numbers. Then, why do we play D&D?
D&D is popular. And that is two-way street in itself: people play D&D and that's why it is popular, and people play D&D because it is popular. It's easier to find D&D games, it's easier to find people who know about D&D, it's easier to explain what is D&D to people, and it's easier to find D&D stuff to buy. And, let's not forget about the boom of popularity that 5th edition has seen over the last few years thanks to streaming shows like Critical Role.
D&D is a complete-product that allows you to easily start playing and gives you a bunch of tools to adapt and play your own games. Anyone can start a game and DM, you just need the books and a narrative!
That's it. Those are the reasons we play D&D. Anything else is most likely a subproduct of one of those two reasons. Knowing this, we can think of some things. D&D being popular is not a thing that is up for the game designers to change at their whims, and, as such, is not something we can blame/ask them for. That's just the way it is. But that affects if we are able to play other TRPGs or not. Because, as I said, D&D is so popular, that is so much easier to find games of D&D than any other TRPG ever made. And that also makes it being very hard to convince people to play other games that you may have taken a liking to. Being that, the popularity of D&D imposes a huge weight on their designers shoulders: the game needs to be good enough, and invinting enough that anyone can play it, and that that second reason must be a real thing for everyone that wants to play it. Remember when I was talking about how some of the designer's choice were lazy? This is what I am talking about. D&D is such a popular game, that we are entitled to truly demand of them of the second-clause: it needs to be a complete-product. That is why we pay them to write books for. Them shoving the work they don't want to do (or are being restricted of doing—you never know with big companies) onto us, such as making races more in line with what people actually want, and giving a half-assed optional rule just so that they don't have to actually think the whole thing through, is just lazy writing. And Tasha's was a huge opportunity for them to actually remake some stuff. And it's because of their choice of just giving a half-assed option that the whole debate about Tasha's worth is here. Because, it is as people say: it basically makes choosing a race pointless. It's not really pointless though, there is always the roleplay possibilities. But that makes players that like to play the game mechanically (and that is perfectly fine, considering how many pages D&D actually invests in the mechanical aspects of the game over the course of the books) feel like there is no point to actually choose a race anymore, as anything can be adapted. It's a double edge kind of thing, it makes min/maxing a lot easier, but it also takes a lot of the fun about it—figuring out which combinations are actually good and whatnot.
Are you here only to complain?
No, I am not. But I warned you that this is half a rant, half an idea. So bear with me.
Backgrounds!
This is it people, this is the Huge Idea I was talking about. I am being ironic here, if it is not clear. But, yeah, that's it. That is the idea: change the whole focus from races, to backgrounds. Everything that was problematic with races is not at all problematic if you shift it into backgrounds. Everything that is cultural should be changed to backgrounds. Because, really, that is what what they should be here for. Your background tells a lot more about your character than your ancestry ever will. The culture you were raised in, the way you were raised, the way how you struggled through life... those answers should be a lot more important to your character than the fact that he was born an elf or a dwarf. And it's something that is already in the game. Why not make proper use of it? In the days before 5th edition was a thing, the one huge complaint I heard from TRPG players about D&D was that Background was wholly unimportant. I'm not that much of a veteran, so I started on 3.X and played through it and through 4th edition, and I remember the buzz around my community when we discovered the news that Backgrounds would be mechanically relevant in 5th edition. It was like we had learned about the discovery of bluetooth (really cool, but nothing to die for). And it was kinda of a disappointment when a couple of months later we realized a background could be reduced to a couple of skill proficiencies, a weird thematical feat that is most useless, some also useless itens, and a few tables to roll in to help you make decisions about how to roleplay your character (which is cool for begginers, I guess). But I am talking about really making backgrounds relevant. And it's almost a proper idea, so lets mull through some of this bit by bit.
Ancestries should only determine very basic stuff about your character: Age, Size, Speed; and give you a couple of traits that are definetly tied to your blood, like Darkvision, Elven resistance to sleep magic, Fire resistance to Tieflings... stuff like that.
Anything that could have been, instead, learned, should be moved to backgrounds: High Elf Cantrip, Elven Training, Dwarf Training, Tiefling Spells, Humans Feat...
Ability Score Increases should also be moved to backgrounds: you being raised as a typical orc warrior should determine either you are strong, not the fact that you are just an orc; as far as we know, you may have been an orc bookworm that never got around the fact that swinging your greataxe was somehow relevant to your life.
Those are the first few steps needed to be taken, then you have to actually put it into paper. And I reckon that this is actually a very heavy job (you basically have to rewrite two whole sections of the PHB), and this might actually be the reason why Wizards is not very keen on doing it, choosing a paliative option instead. But, to be honest, if that is so, I would still prefer an open declaration about this, and the company straigth up saying they are not going to do it because it goes against they policy of remaking material that exists in the PHB (altough optional class features put this into question—What up Beastmaster!). I would prefer that than a half-assed solution to the thing. At least that makes it clear for 3rd party creators that this is an area where they can go for, and not expect competition fron WotC. Which would give us, the consumers, hope for a proper fix.
A couple of ideas
And, the best thing about this whole idea, is that it solves two problems without creating new ones: first, it solves the problems that backgrounds in D&D are not that relevant, and allows players to actually grasp the range of backgrounds is available to them in a typical D&D world (no more 1st level characters that used to be gods!); second, it solves the problem about people still wanting to play archetypical versions of races in the game, all you have to do is make that archetype into a background instead.
High Elf Prodigy Prerequisite: Elf, High Elf ancestry You were born and raised as a proper high elf, in an elven city of beauty and splendor. Over the course of your youth, you were enrolled in the high elf academy of arts, and soon showed yourself to be a prodigy of the elven arts. Good at both the sword, and at magic. You gain the following traits and benefits: - +2 to your Dexterity score and +1 to your Intelligence score - Cantrip... - Proficiency with longsword...
Dwarf Blacksmith Warrior Prerequisite: Dwarf, Mountain Dwarf ancestry You were born and raised a dwarf inside the stone halls of you ancestors, following the customs of your blood. You were trained from an early age on how to work metal, and how to use it to defeat the enemies of your people. When going through adulthood, you forged and donned your own piece of armor to reflect on your coming of age, and becoming a proper warrior of your people. You gain the following traits and benefits: - +2 STR, +1 CON - Proficiency with heavy armor - Proficiency with warhammer...
All in all, these are just some ideas I thought in a very short period of time. Ultimately, you can have so many background options... I understand though that this may create the "Too much to chose from" phenomena that WotC has been desperately trying to avoid with 5th edition. But, let's be honest here, 5e is already 6 years-old, and a lot of content has already come out. We already have a lot of choices, and WotC is steadly building aditional choices over time (see the *I don't know how many* subclasses they published on Tasha's), but they are also doing a good job at keeping the whole thing under control. I believe they are more than capable of making such changes, if they really wanted to.
Some other ponderations
This whole thing was sparked because I read an interview where James Crawford talks about this whole process will take several years to implement. And it irked me, because if I, a nobody, can think of something on my free time, how could the designers under WotC not? So, it seems to me, that the several years is either by choice (aka we are going to wait 5e to die and do that on 6e), or because the higher ups at the company are against this (which also means it is by choice). In the Interview, they also talk about how they have some huge news for 2021... I can only hope that what came out in Tasha's was a paliative solution due the times and social media buzz, and a proper fix is coming. But I won't get my hopes up. Also, it seems weird to issue an paliative solution if a proper one would be coming in the near future. Just issue another statement then! Let's just be clear that, although I criticized the Designers quite a bit, I am not entirely sure they are the ones (or only ones) at fault. As I said, I doubt no one actually had this same idea, so it feels the whole thing was done by choice. And, as I said, I do like 5th edition, and that's why I feel like we should be actually calling them out and demading proper published material. Regarding the whole Race thing, the word is particularly bad right now, so they should just change it to something that makes everyone happy. My personal opinion is that it is bad, and that it also doesn't make that much sense in a sort of medieval like world. As I said, the different ancestries are so diferent, that it would be hard to actually see they themselves bundle themselves together. I feel like the whole discussion of "Who is people?" (which was the main public explanation of black slavery in our own world) would be at a whole another level of headache in a world where gods are so present, and each different species of people was created by a different god with their own weird goals in mind. It is such a huge headache, that I am thoroughly against it in my games (I go for the "there was one common ancestor everyone came from"). But, it is a fantasy game where we play make believe and think of ourselves as "heroes" in epic tales and sagas, so I'm pretty sure most people can just waive these problems away and only deal with the other stuff that is way easier to see through, but, sadly, only encompasses the very surface of the problem, like the steriotypes. In this same topic, why is it that humans in games are always the most bland possible? And everyone else is so different when compared to us, and cool and weird... but we are the most basic dudes in the whole universe for some reason. I hate this concept of design. Human are amazing, we have such crazy ranges of personalities, backgrounds, and everything. We deserve a lot more credit than we actually give ourselves. And, also, there is a bunch of weird biological things about us that certainly are worth noting. Also, how can this bunch of basic people be the ones most spread in all these worlds? There is something incredibly wrong with that. This is a rant. But, I will argue that writers should stop comparing everything to the Basic humans, like we are some kind of template and everything needs to be different, and just think of reasons why we are also cool. Regarding the Background thing, just to prove my point that backgrounds are a lot more important than your blood, I will give you guys a real life example: If someone tells you they are a person from the African continent, what does that tell you? And what does that tell you if this person is actually European? Does that actually give you any insight on who that person is, aside from a very generic "mind image"? But, if I were to tell you that this person was actually raised in England, despite being born in Africa, and that this person actually fought in the First Great War and survived it? And what If this person was actually a graduate in Linguistics that dedicated his life to writing? You see, I am talking about Tolkien, but you couldn't possibly have discovered anything about him if I only said that he was South-African and had British parents. Each detail you add flash out the character a lot more than their blood. And these details come from the background, definetly not from your ancestry (that was the whole problem with the nobles, if you think about it...).
Humanity's Vengeance: The Fall of Praxis III (Part Three)
Part One Part Two Even in the midst of combat, as battle raged across the planet’s surface, it felt good to be tunneling again. Xarrix hadn’t been able to dig for almost a year. The last time he’d delved beneath a planet’s surface had been back on Andrax, shortly before the liberation. After volunteering for duty with the Terrans he’d spent most of his time in the void aboard a Terran warship, and the human officers in charge of training him had run him so ragged that he hadn’t had a lot of time to feel homesick. It was only now, as he dug his way through the soil of Praxis III, that he realized just how much he’d missed this. Xarrix moved through the dirt like a fish through water, using his jointed limbs with surprising grace and efficiency and leaving a long, neat burrow in his wake. His twin antennae acted like sonar dishes, allowing him to keep a steady course and avoid large stones and other obstacles that might otherwise hinder the tunnel’s progress, while the millions of finite hairs on his body provided continuous data on soil composition, oxygen levels and temperature fluctuation. This was what he was born to do, and Builders help him, it felt so good to be doing it again. The humans, Xarrix had learned, had long lived in fear over what lay beneath the surface of their own homeworld. The Terrans had told stories for countless generations of mythical monsters that slept in subterranean caves, or fiery pits where the spirits of the deceased were tormented for eternity. He had been dumbfounded, and still was, for there was nothing to be afraid of! Here, beneath the surface, it was cool and quiet and the only smell was that of freshly-churned earth. The deep places were places of wonder, where giant crystal formations grew to towering heights and seas of luminescent fungi glowed in brilliant neon shades of pink and blue and green. He shook his head, unable to help the chuckle that escaped his mandibles. When the war was over, his people could teach the humans many things. He’d even heard that some of the Confederacy’s highest-ranking officials were so impressed by what his people had done on Andrax that they expressed interest in hiring Kaleekian laborers to replicate such wonders on Terra. The humans’ homeworld, as Xarrix understood it, was small but very densely populated, so the prospect of creating new real estate by building cities underground greatly appealed to them. Xarrix, when told this, had fought not to laugh. Why had it taken the humans so long to figure that out? There was a dull roar somewhere topside, somewhere close, and the earth around Xarrix shuddered. An explosion, he thought, and his moment of elation was replaced by grim resolve. There would be no new buildings, no grand new works, until the war against the Praxians was won. And if he failed to destroy the shield generator, peace would be that much longer in coming. He wondered if he would live to see it. How many of his fellow Kaleekians were fighting and dying on battlefields across the planet at this very moment? How many of the Builders’ children would not live to see blessed Andrax restored to its former splendor? Xarrix forced himself not to think about that. He had a mission, and the best way to honor the dead was to see it fulfilled. His fellow Kaleekians, six in total, were digging right alongside him, carving tunnels of their own as they followed his lead. Xarrix could not see them, but he could hear them and smell the specialized pheromones they emitted as they dug. In this way, each knew the exact location of all the others. Xarrix could sense the massive bunker that house the shield generator. He felt it looming ahead, squatting like a great ugly pimple upon the planet’s surface. As he and his squad got closer, he sharpened his focus, slowing his pace to sift through the dirt for any trace, any hint of what might be lying in wait. If the complex had been built atop the same material that made up its walls, the same material that had shrugged off orbital weapons fire, then the only option for the Terrans would be a frontal assault. Xarrix did not even want to think about how bloody the butcher’s bill for such an attack would be. But if he was right, if his hunch was correct, if its underbelly proved to be its weak spot… He shut his eyes, chittering a brief invocation in his native tongue. Builders. Please let this work. The Builders must have been listening, because a moment later he found exactly what he’d been hoping to find. Tiny shards and bits of ferroplast, mixed in with the loam. Xarrix cheered. Ferroplast was a hard but rather cheap substance used in many sectors across the galaxy. It was prone to erosion and cracking as it aged, but it was cheap to make, could be poured into molds to create any shape imaginable, and could be easily replaced. Perhaps that was why the Praxians had built the shield generator complex on top of it, he thought. Perhaps they spent so much time and effort on its formidable walls and defenses that they simply did not have enough left over to ensure its floor was similarly impregnable. Or, more likely, it simply had not occurred to the Praxians to expect an attack from below. The worse for them, Xarrix thought darkly. His brothers and sisters shared in the joy of his discovery as they, too, came to the same realization. The Kaleekians were exultant as they changed direction and began tunneling toward the surface, rising up like sharks who, on sensing movement in the water, rise silently from the deeps to attack their unsuspecting prey. Approximately fifteen minutes later, Xarrix bumped his head against the bunker’s ferro-plast floor. The stupid Praxians had not even thought to put a layer of concrete or stone between the floor and the planet’s surface; they had simply anchored it in place on four metal pylons, one in each corner, and built the rest of the complex atop it. This had clearly been a rush job, completed in haste in preparation for the siege, and it showed. But the shoddy workmanship still made him shake his head in disgust. It would be an act of mercy to put such an ill-made structure out of its misery. Xarrix bent his head back, opening his insectoid mandibles wide. Eons of evolution had made them strong and sharp enough to chip through solid rock and crush stones the size of a man’s fist. Even now, with all the advanced technology his people had produced, the first tools young Kaleekians ever learned to use, and the ones on which they always relied if all else failed, were their mandibles. The ferro-plast did not stand a chance. Xarrix and his squad ripped chunks of it away, piece by piece, and all the while they listened carefully for any sounds or vibrations from above that might hint at an enemy presence. Their mission depended on the element of surprise. If any Praxians were close by, they would be gunned down as soon as they got inside. But the only thing Xarrix sensed was the humming of machinery and the gurgle of liquid running through pipes. Hurry. He had to hurry. They redoubled their efforts, attacking the ferro-plast floor with frenzied vigor. Xarrix’s mandibles began to ache with the exertion and he grunted with effort as he seized a particularly large piece and pulled with all his might— A gust of fresh air brushed against his chitinous head, and he froze. “We’re in,” he said unnecessarily. His antennae twitched with agitation as he spoke to his kin. “Stay here, my brothers and sisters. I shall go first and see if it is safe to emerge.” One of his fore-limbs strayed to the sword he’d taken earlier, the one he’d torn from the grasp of a dying Praxian officer. “If it comes to a fight, use bayonets and your jaws if you have to. We cannot let the enemy know we are here until the last possible moment. We must be silent and swift.” “We know all this,” another Kaleekian, a female, replied. “Go, Xarrix. Builders protect you.” Xarrix dipped his head, accepting her words gratefully. He took a moment to muster his courage, then surged upward with dizzying speed and clambered out of the hole. He was ready to fight the moment his carapace-armored feet hit the ferro-plast surface, and he held the sword before him, but there was no need. The room Xarrix had emerged in was dark and echoed with the sound of fluid dripping from the network of pipes that ran across the ceiling and all along the walls. This, he guessed, must be part of the shield generator’s cooling system, and the pipes were the arteries through which the coolants were pumped. A most inefficient system, but that was unimportant. They had made it, and no one had spotted them, and for the moment that was enough. Xarrix turned back to the hole. “Clear,” he said. “Come now, hurry, we must not linger.” The other Kaleekians climbed out, one by one, and gazed about them as they tried to get their bearings. “This,” one of them said, “is a most inefficient way to cool machinery.” “I thought the same thing,” Xarrix said. “Shall we destroy it?” asked the female. “Without coolant, the generator will overheat and eventually self-destruct.” “We will destroy it,” Xarrix said, nodding. “But that may not be enough, sister. The Praxians may have have fail-safes in place to prevent such a thing from occurring, and even if they haven’t, it could take hours for the generator to overheat. And in those hours, hundreds of Terrans, Kaleekians and others could die. No, we must sabotage the main control system to make sure the shield is down.” “How will we know the main control system if we see it?” Xarrix gave a bleak chuckle. “It will probably be the most heavily guarded. In the meantime, we should damage whatever we can as we go. Cut cables. Sever power lines. Press buttons and pull levers.” He strode toward a cluster of pipes, hefting his sword. “I shall start.” The blade flashed down. Its super-heated edge cut through the pipes like chunks of sausage. Fluid gushed out and splashed onto the floor. The others, taking their cue from him, did the same. When the system had been suitably mutilated, Xarrix nodded in satisfaction. “This way. Up the stairs.” They hastened from the room and hurried up the winding passageway, but they hadn’t gotten more than a dozen paces before Xarrix nearly ran head-first into a Praxian soldier. The Praxian, who must have been on some errand or other, stared in disbelief. He reached for the pistol holstered at his waist, but it was already too late. Xarrix swung his blade—but stopped just short of taking the other alien’s head off. He held its edge to the Praxian’s throat. “Make one sound and I’ll kill you,” he said. “Please nod if you understand me.” The Praxian nodded. “Where is the main control room?” Xarrix demanded. “Tell me, and I will spare your life. Attempt to sound an alarm, and you will die before the cry leaves your lips. Nod again if you understand.” The Praxian nodded. Xarrix eased off the pressure just enough to allow him to talk. Even so, the Praxian had to say each word carefully to avoid cutting his own throat. “…Make a right,” he rasped. “Then make a left. Last door at the end of the hall.” “Thank you,” Xarrix said. Then he learned his head back and brought it forward, hard, slamming his carapace-covered cranium into the Praxian’s forehead. The Praxian fell in a heap. “We should kill him,” said the female Kaleekian, the one who’d spoken earlier. “He would do no less to us.” “His death has only been postponed,” Xarrix told her. “When we destroy this place, he will perish with all the rest.” That seemed to placate her. The Kaleekians hurried along their way. A moment later they reached an intersection, and following the Praxian’s directions, they veered right into another long hallway. Unfortunately, they turned the corner at the same time as a squad of enemy troopers. Xarrix had just enough time to curse his misfortune before the hallway erupted with laser fire. Knowing the element of surprise was lost, he gripped his pulse rifle and tightened his claws around the trigger as las-rounds flew around him. “FOR TERRA!” he cried, and the Kaleekians charged. The Praxians were hardened soldiers, but caught off-guard and surprised at the sudden appearance of their enemies, their aim was poor and their shots flew wide. Xarrix and his friends, however, had no such difficulties. Their return fire dropped three of the Praxians instantly, and by the time their bodies had finished falling the Kaleekians were upon them. What followed was a nightmare of bloody face-to-face combat, of bayonets flashing, of fists and feet kicking and punching, of blood that flew through the air in looping arcs and spattered the walls. Xarrix bayoneted a Praxian soldier, felt the hot spray of gore on his face as the alien fell. He turned to slay another, only to cry out in pain as something smashed into the side of his head. Xarrix’s vision went gray and blurry as fell to the floor. His weapons fell from his grasp. He clutched at his head, and he could dimly make out the form of a Praxian standing over him. The other Kaleekians, engaged as they were, were unable to turn and help him, for to do so would mean their own deaths. Through the ringing noise in his auditory sensors, Xarrix heard the Praxian speak. “You forget your place, slave,” he sneered, his voice filled with arrogant contempt. “When we have driven these Terran upstarts back into the void, your people will learn what happens when you rebel against your betters.” “NO!” Xarrix screamed. Fury like nothing he’d ever felt before roared through him, and he sprung to his feet, throwing himself at his enemy. The Praxian raised his weapon to defend himself, but Xarrix clamped his mandibles shut around his arm and severed it at the elbow. The Praxian stared at the spurting stump and shrieked. Xarrix didn’t care. He clamped his dripping jaws around his throat. His mandibles crossed, then uncrossed like scissors. Snip. Something large and round fell to the floor, bounced, and rolled off down the hall, leaving a dark wet trail in its wake. Xarrix dropped the corpse and turned, ready to throw himself back into the fray, but there was no longer any fray to throw himself into. The other Kaleekians had finished the grisly task, but not without cost. Xarrix’s heart lurched as he two of his companions lying amidst the dead. There was no time to mourn. He heard more Praxians coming, many more, and felt despair. Discarding his sword, he grasped the rifle of one of his fallen brothers. “A weapon in each hand will help us match their numbers a bit better,” he said. “If this is to be our end, let us face it with courage.” “No,” said the female, whose name Xarrix had never had time to learn. “No! They are too many, you know this. We cannot hold for long against numbers such as those bearing down upon us, even if we had more arms than a Gorgorian! But there is hope yet that we might complete our mission! We have lost the element of surprise. Every Praxian in this wretched place is about to descend upon us, but they might have left the control room unguarded, or tended by a skeleton crew. You have gotten us this far, Xarrix—you must go and see to the generator’s destruction! We will buy you as much time as we can!” Xarrix felt moisture beading in his compound his sister. “Sister…I…” “She is right,” said another. “Even a blind Andraxian cave worm could see it.” “I would have liked to see Andrax one last time,” added a third. “To feel its firm soil beneath my feet. To breathe its hot dry air.” “I’m so sorry,” Xarrix whispered. “Not as sorry as the Praxians are going to be, once the shield is down,” said the female. She reached for the bandolier slung across her shoulder and unclipped the grenades dangling from it. “Take these and go, now,” she said, pressing the explosives into his hands. "Tell our people what we did here. Carve our story onto a memory-stone when you return to our homeworld.” “I will,” Xarrix said. “I swear it. But…” he looked at them sheepishly. “I would know your names, before I go.” The female nodded. “I am Ixtax. These others are Ziorzz, Helgrix, Kixxar, Noxxi and Korzzik.” “I will not forget them,” Xarrix promised. “I will hew them in crystal, in a place where all can see.” “Then get out of here,” Ixtax said. “They are almost upon us. We will delay them as long as we can.” Xarrix let out a chittering, high-pitched shriek of grief and rage. Every cell in his body told him to stay, to stand and fight and die with his fellows, but he drove himself onward, pausing to pick up his blade again before running from the sound of the onrushing Praxian troops. He darted around the corner in time to avoid being seen as they surged past him, and a moment later there was a deafening chorus of shouts and weapons fire. Reluctantly, sadly, and with his heart heavy in his thorax, Xarrix left his comrades to their fate. The main control room was close. He could sense it. Just a little more… And then there it was. The door at the end of the hall. Xarrix’s heart thundered in his chest. Everything depended on what happened in the next several seconds. If he wasn’t shot the moment he walked through that door, he would see the base destroyed even if he had to blow himself up along with it. The door was sealed, of course, but that was not a huge impediment. The officer’s sword he carried was hot enough to burn through the deadbolt and slice the door free. Xarrix kicked it open and stormed into the shield generator’s central hub, but he realized the female had been right. The room was all but abandoned, save for a handful of Praxian scientists who’d been monitoring the various panels and holo-screens. Perhaps they’d just realized that the cooling system had been damaged, because when they looked up, their faces were already pale with fear. Xarrix made short work of them. The first two he shot, and when the third tried to make a run for it, he ran him down and drove his blade through his back. “For Andrax,” he snarled. “For my people, for my friends, for Terra, for everything.” He pulled the dripping blade free and turned to the nearest console. The blade sliced through it as easily as it sliced through flesh. A shower of sparks flew in all directions. Alarms began to wail, signaling a cascading system failure. Xarrix paid it no heed. He activated the grenades and tossed them, almost casually, across the room. The explosives were of Terran make. He knew from his training that he had approximately thirty seconds to escape the facility before they exploded, and he also knew that it would take him more time than that to go out the way he came in. Nothing else for it, then Xarrix got down on all fours and began gnawing at the floor as if his life depended on it. Which it did. He bit and ripped and chewed as he’d never done before, until the muscles in his lower jaw ached from the force of each bite. In his head, he counted down the seconds, knowing each moment lost brought him that much closer to his doom 20… He ripped a large piece away, heedless of the way the chitin of his left mandible cracked under the strain, exposing the sensitive, soft green flesh that lay beneath.. It hurt tremendously, but he couldn’t stop now. 15… Xarrix wanted to live. He would die if he had to, but he really, really wanted to live. Someone had to make it out of this in one piece. He had promised the others. 10… He wondered if he'd feel any pain if he didn't get out in time. Would death come swiftly enough that he wouldn't feel himself being blown apart? 5... A final, Herculean burst of effort, and the growing hole in the floor widened just enough for his thin insectoid body to slip through. Xarrix leapt through it, disappearing into the safety of the planet’s bowels only a few scant seconds before everything blossomed into fire. To the Terran troops pinned down outside, the explosion was deafening, even over the clamor and din of war. Sergeant Gonzalez was one of many knocked off his feet and thrown through the air by the shockwave, and a wave of dust rolled out in its wake, temporarily blinding him. The blast left soldiers on both sides stunned and disoriented, bringing the battle to a temporary and unexpected halt. But as the dust began to settle, both Terran and Praxian alike came to the same realization at the exact same instant. The shield generator was down. The way to the Praxian capital was open. A roaring, rolling cheer grew from the Terran lines, gathering force and volume as it ripped from a hundred thousand throats. Gonzalez laughed like a man possessed, relishing the look of horror on the Praxians’ faces. He slapped a fresh energy cartridge into his pulse rifle and flicked the power to setting maximum. Then he shot a slack-jawed Praxian in the face. That broke the spell. The Terrans threw themselves at the demoralized foe, and the battle became a rout. Some Praxians tried to flee, others tried to stand and fight, but the wave of Terran infantry swept over them like a great ocean and left none alive in its wake. This was no longer a battle, but butchery, and the ground became so soaked in Praxian blood that Terran soldiers stumbled and slipped in their haste to press their advantage. Xarrix’s head emerged from the ground in time to see his comrades driving the Praxians back. The scene around him could only be described as total carnage. In the background, the shield generator complex was engulfed in flames, and as far as the eye could see the ground was piled high with enemy dead. He looked away, saw Gonzalez in the distant and hurriedly pulled himself out. Xarrix had to run in order to catch up with him. “Sergeant! SERGEANT!” Gonzalez turned, bringing his rifle up, but on seeing Xarrix he lowered his weapon and smiled at him like a proud father. “YOU DID IT!” he yelled, seizing Xarrix in a bear hug. “You crazy son of a bitch, you actually did it!” Xarrix nodded, but couldn’t help the sadness that crept into his tone. “At great cost, yes. None of the others made it out. They sacrificed themselves to distract the garrison long enough for me to complete the mission. They are the real heroes, not me.” Gonzalez’s expression sobered. “They will be honored,” he assured him. “All of them. As will you. I’ll nominate the lot of you for Medals of Honor, and when the Joint Chiefs hear about what you’ve done here today, they’ll all but insist on it.” Xarrix ducked his head in acknowledgment, feeling sheepish. “…Thank you, sir.” He looked away. “Victory is a bittersweet thing, I am finding.” “It is,” Gonzalez said. “It never comes easily, or without cost.” He pointed upward at the Terran ships in orbit. “But thanks to you, they will help make sure the cost is not as high as it would be otherwise. You’ve done your people proud today, Xarrix.” Xarrix’s self-control broke then, and he wept. Gonzalez made no attempt to stop him, nor did he judge the Kaleekian for doing so as the armies of Terra advanced. Aboard the Glory of Terra, Admiral Benjamin Blake, watching a live readout of the battle raging below, nodded with satisfaction as the bridge crew erupted with applause. With the shield generator’s destruction, an entire sector of the planet’s surface lay naked and vulnerable beneath the guns of the Terran fleet. He spoke without raising his voice, and the bridge fell instantly silent. “Time to bring the rain, ladies and gentle-beings. All power to forward weapons, batteries six through ten to fire at targets in sector five-six-six-nine-two. Priority targets are enemy fortifications and trench lines.” “Aye, sir,” replied the chief gunnery officer. “Five-six-six-nine-two. Batteries at maximum.” “Commence target acquisition.” The officer studied her viewscreen. “Targets acquired. On your command, Admiral.” Blake nodded once. ‘Open fire.” Xarrix was still trying to get himself under control when the Terran Navy opened up on Praxis III. The first he heard was a noise like a freight train coming through the upper atmosphere, and when he looked up, he saw green lights in the sky that rapidly grew to blinding intensity as they fell like the thunderbolts of an ancient, wrathful god. He could only watch in horrified awe as las-beams large enough to destroy a small settlement fell upon the enemy. Entire lines of trenches were vaporized. Tens of thousands of Praxians were incinerated. Tanks and armored vehicles, what few were left, were turned to twisted shrapnel. Dirt was melted and turned to superheated glass. In less time than one could write it, approximately ninety-percent of the enemy’s remaining strength in that sector was obliterated. The survivors, reeling and stupefied with shock and horror, threw down their weapons in surrender. “Wise move,” Gonzalez said grimly. “But I almost wish they hadn’t.” He turned to Xarrix, reverting to his usual gruffness. “We’re not quite done here yet, soldier. Get a guard detail together and round up the prisoners. Take them behind the lines and keep them under heavy guard until high command tells us what to do with them.” “Yes, sir,” Xarrix said. “Are we not advancing further?” “No. Our orders are to secure and fortify this sector before pushing on. If we go too far, we risk over-extending ourselves.” “Understood, sir.” “Oh, and Xarrix?” “Sir?” Gonzalez arched an eyebrow. “If you start telling anyone that I’ve gone soft or some shit, I’ll have you scrubbing uniforms until you shed your exoskeleton. Clear?” Xarrix fought to keep the smile from showing in his voice. “Clear, sir.” “Then be about it. And get that mandible seen to by a medic while you’re at it. Dismissed!” A/N: Sorry for the delay! Holiday stuff has kept me busy but I hope this was worth the wait! I've got at least one more part of this series planned, but I may do more! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and please do feel free to leave a comment with any thoughts, feedback or ideas you might have!
As I did with the past Traditions, I´m trying to push a bit what prime can do alone by considering that the sphere can affect, shape and impose ressonance. Since cultist magic often involves pleasure, addiction and madness, those were the ressonance effects I´m proposing as the basis for traditional ecstatic prime rotes. I hope most storytellers could come to agree with me on that. The alternative is to make these effects require mind and lock prime as being always about pushing quintessence around with not much flavor added to it. What do you think? This sphere can become quite a struggle. Feedback, as always, is where is at. I would love to hear your thoughts about how to improve these lists and what sort of elements I may be missrepresenting or have been overlooked. ---- Past Lists: Basic Rotes for the Traditions ---- Prime O - The Uncoiling Awareness: By meditating, doing yoga postures and chanting mantras, the cultists stir the primordial energies that rest inside his body to suffuse and overwhelm his senses, opening perceptions to the hidden splendor of cosmos. Traditionally practiced as the awakening of the kundalini, this rote allows a Cultist to forgo the use of other substances to reach Ananda. Quintessence itself, understood as the manifestation of Shakti, is his drug of choice, and it is ever present and endless in its currents. This effect has two parts: First, the transcendental moment, which arrives after long sessions of meditation and tantra, in which kundalini uncoils and rises along the mage’s spine producing an overwhelming experience of unity, splendor and connectedness. This is often used as an alternative way to focus other rotes when their proper rituals can’t be performed, and is such a powerful experience that rivals the hardest psychedelic substance, taking a mage out of his feat and sometimes even making him faint. The second part comes once the initial ecstasy has subsumed and the cultist can enjoy the lingering expanded perceptions. The presence and flow of shakti superimposes itself over normal hearing, sight and touch and while the mage may have more difficulty perceiving the material world, supernatural energies reveal themselves as shining mandalas, perfumes and indescribable sounds. O - The Essence of Art: by breathign in the incense smoke that dances on a room, By savoring the food and wine that has been sitting on a location or by tasting the kiss or enjoying sex with a person the ecstatic capture the Ojas, or living energies, that define a subject very nature. These energies serve as powerful inspiration in devising works of poetry, music and art that display the very essence and resonance of a given subject. While often used as creative fuel, this rote also allows the cultist to discover supernatural influences at work by carefully examining the finished art pieces. A palid, languid figure on a painting may reveal vampiric influence over a person, while the savage multicolored hair may hint at a shapeshifter or spiritual connection. Music is particularly powerful at capturing resonance, making other mages with supernatural senses be shocked by the accuracy with which some Ecstatic art convey things that can’t be described in words. Ecstatic artists almost never suffer a lack of inspiration and writers may easily surpass blocks and crisis through this rote. Changeling may find mages who are trained in this spell particularly interesting, and lots of long lasting friendships were born when fae folk were surprised by listening or seeing their form and nature exposed in pieces of music and art produced by artists they would never associated with their preconceptions of what a mage would look like. OO - Flowers of Possibility: The universe to the cultist eyes is a manifold mandala that expands through infinity realities and possibilities. The visions, dreams and hallucinations that reveal themselves in moments of ecstasy are just glimpses of what is or could be in different words and alternative dimensions. Inside the fecund energy of shakti, all things that could be are, despite the limitations the current manifestation of our world. Through song, art and dance, the ecstatic can connect with these alternatives. To his mystical senses, supernatural music, mandalas of power and invisible flowers reveal themselves in accordance to inspiration and emotion. Through this rote the cultist baths in perfume only supernatural senses can smell, Decorate his temple with tapestries hidden from mundane eyes and lapidate the stuff of dreams into beautiful sculptures that dwarf the simpler idols of wood and stone over which they are cast. This rote is often used to decorate and consecrate the temple of ecstasy with wonders that astonish mortals when they finally manage to open their mystical senses. It marks the paths that lead to secret hideouts and add hidden meaning and depth to simple gifts, paintings, music and art. This spell also allows the cultist to weave powerful disguises that mask his awakened state with the symbols and fragrances that mark other supernatural creatures. Reinforcing the respect Cultists have for the mad prophet and visionary, sometimes people under the clutches of madness, intoxication and delirium seem to get glimpses and tastes of these mystical constructs without any external help, and many secret societies and cults often learn to welcome the odd visitor that arrive at their meeting places guided by visions and omens he can’t properly explain. OO - A Sip of Enlightenment: Through pain, pleasure and effort the cultist is able to guide another person into uncoiling their own kundalini and opening their senses to the explosive wonder of the universe. This allows even sleepers to experience the orgasmic explosion of enlightenment and enjoy the lingering expanded perceptions for the following hours. While often enacted through long sessions of meditation, tantra, yoga and trace, this rote also teaches how the cultist can funnel shakti in powerful concoctions that provide a high like no earthly drug and kicks the doors of perception open in a explosive moment of awareness. Sleepers that experience this effect on a regular basis often become amenable to the paradigm of the cult and stop being considered witnesses for vulgar effects, they can also interact and observe the hidden flowers of possibility mages often create to welcome them into the supernatural world. Unfortunately this can easily become an addicting spiritual state that often take away the luster of other pleasures and may lead to followers becoming fiends chasing the particularly dangerous high of supernatural awareness. The same powerful and condensed experience that expand the senses of sleepers can become a disorientating trap that overwhelms, burns and distorts the senses of supernatural creatures and other mages. Ecstatic drugs can poison the energies of other mages making difficult for them to concentrate on their foci and work their spells. In times of war, the cult is known to prepare special powders, incenses and coat their knives in substances that send their awakened enemies into hellish hallucinations when they try to access their inner powers. OOO - An Intimate Exchange: Long massages, guided meditation and even sessions of consenting torture and bondage are tools the cult uses to attune the energies and chackras of a mage with those of a partner. This allows shakti to freely flow between them creating strong, powerful connections. The Cultist invests a measure of his on quintessence on his partner and as long as it is kept both partners become more susceptible to each other supernatural influence. Not only spells become easier, but they also last longer. Additionally, while on each other presence, partners are filled by deep sense of comfort and belonging. While Sleepers can be made to carry quintessence with this rote, their chakras cannot hold extra shakti for long and during their moments of ecstasy power slowly disperses giving rise to vivid dreams and lingering sensations. This rote often causes withdrawal proportional to the amount of power invested and the duration of the spell. Once the influence disperses, the subject may experience mild bouts of depression, solitude and lack of creativity. The mage’s presence may also be sorely missed by its partner as his vanishing shakti feels like a part of the subject own soul that was taken away. OOO - Align the Chakras: Through Dance, tantric meditation, use of special incenses and concoction of special foods and drinks the cultist is able to use his own shakti to align another mage or supernatural creature chakras so power may flow more freely through his body. While this effect lasts the supernatural creature can more easily manifest their own powers and abilities, and the mage can surpass external difficulties in using their spells. The cultist must choose a specific theme, flavor or purpose toward he is pushing his subject and only those powers and effects that follow that direction are boosted. As a side effect, powers, abilities and even mundane skills that go against the chosen alignment become greatly hindered and hard to access. This rote is often used to help sleepers develop their nascent supernatural sensibilities and make embrionary gifts flourish. Unfortunately most people can’t find extraordinary talents in their spirits and the only effect this rote provokes on them is a burst of creativity, vivid dreams and some major hangovers in the following days. OOOO - A Dance of Nightmares: Repeating unrelenting, formless mantras, indulging in heavy intoxication, juggling of torches and performing violent dances allow the ecstatic to swirl and twist the ambient energies in chaotic patterns and make unpredictable energetic forms and fluations pop in and out of existence. This rote unleashes waves of confusion and madness that make all sort of supernatural effects wild, unpredictable and unreliable. The senses of supernatural creatures are haunted by disturbing visions, hallucinations and they may find their own abilities behaving in strange ways. Mages trying to cast spells must fight against confusion and feel paradox bites harder and deeper. Technomantic sensors behave erratically and their devices seem to suffer from power fluctuations. While this effect doesn't directly counter spells, it does warp them in unexpected ways, making them spread to unintended targets, be bolstered in an instant and suddenly stop a second later or spin out of the caster direct control. Extended rituals may become impossible to maintain and long lasting enchantments and spells may have their effects completely warped. OOOO - The Sacred Poison: The ecstatic uses drugs, ecstatic postures and mad mantras to make his own swirling, flaming shakti poison the ambient energy of a node, layline or place of power. All supernatural creatures inhabiting or tasting of place’s energy become assaulted by ecstatic hallucinations, intense pleasure, pain and confusion. The quintessence of the place also becomes extremely addicting and cathartic. Those that partake of it may feel compelled to indulge again and again. Sensible sleepers may have vivid dreams, bolstered artistic inspiration and libido overcharged when visiting the place. OOOOO - The Avatar of Gods: Ecstatic masters are able to lead cults of sleepers into collective orgies, rituals and ceremonies that not only open their eyes to the supernatural but also gift their spirits with the power to shape their dreams, desires and hallucinations in phantasmagorical constructs they can see, taste, touch and feel as real. Using the image of the Devas and asuras, cultists can focus the imagination and creative forces of a collective making the gods arise, dance and make love with them. These rituals are often enacted under the influence of sacred drugs to alleviate the unbelief and paradox that may flow from more sane and collected hearts. In times of war, cultist may wip the madness frenzied and hallucinating warriors into burning avatars of kali or the valkyries themselves and by poisoning the water supply of technocratic strongholds may lock enemies unaccustomed with the kiss of madness in prisons where they confront the fangs and teeth of the supernatural world they insist to deny. OOOOO - To Gather the Cult: It is said that the body of shakti, the wife of shiva, was split into dozens of pieces and spread across India. On the places the pieces fell, villagers and priests created temples where Peethas, sacred shrines encasing her essence, are worshipped and honored. Alongside Lingas, phallic stones representing her husbands presence and power, Peethas serve as centerpieces accumulating worship and respect for the wonder and love that give form to the universe. This ancient rite allows cultists to create new sacred places where the essence of shakti can manifest. Through devotion, celebration, art and music, the creative energy of the goddess can be collected in a sacred stone and a node can be born around it. Across the world Ecstatics, Choristers and Euthanatos share a roof under these sacred temples. In these places, their different practices and teachings find common grounds in the common culture they found roots. Each, in their own ways, honor the beauty, wonder and bliss of the universe and its forces. In shared ceremonies, the search for bliss, sacred duty and divine communion reveal themselves as different facets of unified goal of devotion and respect.
For newcomers/those who need a refresher, the resources I've created to run this campaign can be found HERE: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kORJOPY6eCK7gp3FCzqBgtzY1JkGxd4c4Pm0t-Bf4Wk/edit# (I will give you access if you request it) My players are Jake (Ranger 3), Sean (Paladin 3), Quinn (Druid 3), and Grace (Wizard 3). I owe folks an explanation for not giving an update in so long. Essentially, our next session didn't end up progressing us too much so I thought I'd wait another week and type up the report for both weeks together. But then scheduling issues and illness hit and it was honestly super frustrating getting people together. Also, I've still been so ridiculously busy! Anyway, we finally had another session a couple days ago so here's the report! We started out in the basement with Rourke, having traded information with him. Now the group was ready to go through the passage in the wine cellar. I drew up a twisty little map for this part and had Rourke assure them it was safe. It actually was safe! I just didn't want them to always associate being placed on a map with combat being imminent. So they just kinda moved through the passage without incident. The elevator at the other end was powered down, so Rourke had Iris fly into a socket and drain her power into it. Iris was out of commission until her battery could recharge (I said it would naturally charge in 4 hours). Rourke took them to the lake where you can take Estela or Jake and notice snow, so they could rest for the night. However, the PCs wanted to rest as little as possible so they took a short rest (1 hour) despite how long they'd been awake. I had them all roll to resist exhaustion as a result. Grace and Taylor failed. Rourke didn't need to roll ("I've been sleeping for the past six months.") I was going to give them the snowy mountain clue when they woke up that morning, but they didn't wait for morning, so it was too dark. They also didn't stick around long enough for me to call for a perception check, so they missed another clue (this is starting to be, and will continue to be, a trend). I skipped the time loop puzzle since that's kind of a Taylor-only thing. I guess I could've adapted it, but it felt like the kind of thing that works a lot better in Choices than in D&D, so instead I had them find the orb in the water. The orb reacted to the power Grace had already absorbed, giving her a couple new force-themed spells to call upon. She got a chance to use them pretty quickly when a jaguar attacked them. The jaguar went for Quinn first, being the weakest, and managed to sneak up on the group. And frankly, I forgot how fragile Quinn is >_>. This jaguar straight up came one point from killing her outright in its FIRST ATTACK. I did not want a dead Quinn, so I was happy when the players rallied together to defeat the jaguar before it could finish her off. Grace particularly made a splash showcasing her new power with an upcast Magic Missile. Sean was able to bring Quinn back up by tending to her wounds, but she still wasn't doing too great. Finally they made it to Elyys'tel and saw the great tree for the first time. Then they saw Diego being moved out of the village. Now, this campaign differs from Endless Summer in that the entire group got captured but the players, so I wasn't sure whether they'd go after Diego or try to sneak into the village and find the others. I worked out a scenario for both. For the village, I revamped the whole stealth system, had some huts for them to check (the large one was a jail but they didn't know that yet, the others had little world building details - one was a beflowered marriage hut, for example), rotating shift configurations, a bunch of things to hide behind, etc. If they made it to the jail, it was a mini-dungeon with their friends minus Diego at the other end. Like their Choices counterparts, though, they chose to follow Diego. They snuck through the trees after the party, avoiding a few odd Vaanti in the woods and their old pal T'kal. They were almost discovered at one point but Quinn managed to get the fox to lead them away. The fox, though, would be absent for the rest of the session (what happened to him? Find out next time!). They also found the stone monument and the statue of the Bride, but were unable to determine how to get the ring off of her and were afraid of being discovered. Frankly, I don't blame them -- this is a super unintuitive puzzle. I did my best to make it obvious, but all I managed to do was make it clear that this was related to the deserted wedding at the Celestial. They still don't know why, though. Please note that this is another clue they missed. Well, they made it to the temple. All this happened just like in ES, with Taylor translating the conversation between Varyyn and Uqzhaal (this serving to assure the PCs that Diego isn't in as much danger as they thought he was). Varyyn and Diego went into the temple and Taylor convinced everyone to sneak in after them. Iris made a distraction at the other end of the Vaanti camp to give them an opening. So now they're down Iris and their fox friend... I was super proud of this temple I made. Generally in D&D, if you go into an ancient temple, there's a dungeon, so I wanted to make sure there was a bit more to this place than in canon. But I didn't want obstacles/monsters that Diego and Varyyn would have had to deal with on THEIR way through, and I didn't want anything that would make noise that would alert Diego and Varyyn to their presence. At last I had the idea of another glowing orb at the start that when picked up, moved everyone into an alternate reality version of the temple populated by some scenarios that were half foreshadowing/half messed up therapy sessions. Naturally they picked up the orb. Quinn's trial was first up. This was basically just glowing spirits that attacked her, screaming for their heart back. More on the foreshadowing side of things than the therapy side. But I made a pretty big mistake here. First: Quinn was the one who'd picked up the orb. So when the ghosts attacked, she just tried to give the orb to them... and gave them an extra round to kill her in. Second: Quinn is fragile. Really fragile. I never remember how fragile she is. And where the jaguar almost killed her, a ghost rolled super high damage and... killed Quinn. All was not lost! I really didn't want to kill Quinn, as I've said, but this time I had the excuse that none of this was taking place in reality. I was already spinning up ways to fix this. In the meantime, I let everyone believe Quinn had died and had her player control Taylor for the rest of the session. Rourke made a play for Quinn's idol but Taylor took it instead (wise move). They moved onward, gradually discovering that the temple was bigger on the inside. My plan was to ramp up the weirdness gradually. This next room was Grace's, and I was super proud of it. Essentially, she had to find a 3-number combination to open the way forward. But she had no clues. In the middle of the room was a car that looked like her teacher's car and a wooden bat. Every time she hit the car with the bat, she got a clue. If she hit it and was out of clues, she took psychic damage instead. However, Grace's player loves puzzles and is smart so she was very measured with her hits once she figured out what to do, and solved the puzzle before running out of clues. Then came Jake. I had two arachnid soldiers tormenting Mike, telling Jake to just move along. This was kind of meant to help Jake realize he should stop blaming himself for Mike's death (and also foreshadow that Mike IS alive), but Jake just lost his shit and attacked the Arachnid soldiers. Despite their scary damage potential and Taylor still not being trained in unarmed combat, the PCs won. Mostly because of Rourke's help and the soldiers wasting their first turn killing Mike. Mike got in some dying last words telling Jake to forgive himself, Jake took some psychic damage for witnessing Mike's death, and the PCs got their hands on some assault rifles. Sean: "We can just... take these?" Me: "Yeah, there they are. Go ahead." Jake: "Okay, now I KNOW this isn't real. There's no way we'd be able to use these if we got to keep them." (I had Jake roll when he said that. If a character rolled to disbelieve and got high enough, they recognized the situation as an illusion and took dramatically less damage, and also gained insight into how to break the illusion. Jake failed, however). Next up, Sean was confronted by his father. Marcus wanted to fight him one on one. No armor, no weapons. Rematch of the day he got kicked out of the house. This was supposed to teach Sean that he was allowed to let others solve his problems. And boy did he learn it... Sean: "This can't be real. There's no way you're here." Jake: "Alright, I got this. DM, I'd like to use my new third-level ability. Gut instinct." Me: "Alright, what's your question?" Jake: "Is it a good idea to shoot Sean's dad with my assault rifle?" Me: "YES." Jake: "Best day of my life." Jake took down the fake Marcus in two shots, leaving Sean traumatized but free of psychic damage. From here, things got weirder. They kept going through the temple but it melted away and turned into a boat. This was Taylor's part of the vision and it was mostly abstract symbolic foreshadowing. For one thing, Yvonne was on the boat. Then the party noted bodies floating in the water. Thousands of bodies, and all the bodies were of them and their friends. This represented the thousands of times they've died in previous timelines. Then Cetus appeared and called down a storm. In a moment of desperation, Taylor unleashed a power that I described as growing inside her. A massive burst of energy killed Cetus, vaporized the ocean, set fire to the atmosphere, etc... but left La Huerta and her friends untouched. (AH THE FORESHADOWING). I told "Taylor" (Quinn's player) that this part was all about choosing between her friends and the rest of the world (or should I say, the Endless ending or the Vaanu ending?) The steam from the evaporating ocean filled their vision with whiteness, and then the white faded away to find themselves in a laboratory. Rourke's vision. There was a test tube with something inside it but the test tube started growing out of control, a mass of gray flesh that shattered the test tube. Rourke had the lab vaporize it, and seemed affronted by the implication that this should be a hard decision for him. This was meant to be a hint that Aleister is a clone, and the party actually got it! Though I didn't confirm one way or another. However, Rourke did NOT learn the lesson the island was trying to teach him. At this point, Rourke used the lab's equipment to determine that they were in a false reality originating from the orb and broke the orb, returning them to the temple. Where they found Quinn, barely breathing but alive. I essentially described how Quinn's consciousness had been awake even after her body "died" and how she'd seen how sad everyone was to lose her and how much the group needed her. Basically turning her accidental death into the island's way of trying to shake her out of her fatalism, and that being the big emotional lesson SHE had to come to terms with. I thought it worked pretty well, and the players accepted it! All that was left was to find Diego and Varyyn. This scene basically happened like it did in canon, with Diego and Varyyn talking and flirting a bit before finding the catalyst idol. I did make one addition - I read a fanfic once about what life was like for Diego in the six months he was left alone, and in that fanfic, he first introduced himself by saying "Me Tarzan." I just loved that! So now Varyyn calls him "MeTarzan" as a joke. Anyway, the group stepped out and Quinn cast eagle's splendor to make the diplomacy go smoothly. Rourke, seeing where this was going, decided to make his move and with the help of Iris, who'd just returned, put a knife to Taylor's throat and tried to get the PCs to hand over the idols. Then... Quinn. Quinn, Quinn, Quinn. Tried to reason with him, still under the effects of eagle's splendor. And rolled a 20. I couldn't ignore that kind of roll, so I had Rourke realize he was at a disadvantage, give up, and sort of slink away vowing to come back for them. Oh, and previously, Jake let slip to Rourke that Lundgren was on the island, so Rourke knows exactly where to find help... (eh, this was going to happen anyway, but now this transition works a lot better!) ...And then everyone left the temple and Uqzhaal gave his little speech about the catalysts and we called the session. Phew, that was a long one (or two)! Next up: the PCs reunite with the other catalysts and stand trial!
Due to the length of this post, statblocks have been moved into a comment.
With such a deep history, the Djinni are well known outside the context of Dungeons & Dragons, and might even owe some of their popularity to One Thousand and One Nights. Genies are powerful, supernatural beings in Arabic folklore, and are thought to have originated as a pagan belief. While Djinni are simply genies in our own history, for Dungeons & Dragons they are a very specific type of genie who controls a major Inner Plane known as the Plane of Air. They are free-spirits who hate any type of confinement, whether real or perceived, and are not strictly evil unlike many of the other genies. Jinn, or genie, have shown up in a huge amount of popular culture from Supernatural to Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and from Mega Man to Dragon Rider (1997), it has shown up in a huge variety of places. Sometimes they are evil, sometimes cruel, but in every instance, they are a supernatural force to be reckoned with. This can be a very exciting creature if our own pop culture proves anything, so we jump into Dungeons & Dragons, excited to see everything about the Djinni and their exciting take on it! As a side note, before we begin, there was a lot of confusion across the editions on how to spell Djinni, Jinn, Djinns, or Djinn. We decided to stick solely with Djinni even though Djinni signifies a singular tense whereas Djinn was thought to be more plural tense. We apologize for our grammar on that and choose to go with using Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition’s Djinni.
OD&D - Djinn
The Djinni first appears in the White Box Set - Book 2: Monsters & Treasures (1973) and immediately our hopes and dreams are dashed as the first statement about these creatures is that they are not the wish-granting entities we were hoping for. We shouldn’t get too sad though, for the Djinni are still magnificent creatures with plenty of great abilities we so rarely see in this edition. Djinni can fly and walk, which may not be super exciting, but they are just as fast as a dragon, which is pretty impressive. When being a material being in a material world gets to be too much for the Djinni, they have a special ability that allows them to change into a gaseous form. If they simply just want to disappear but don’t want to drop the book they’re reading, they can also go invisible whenever they want. Along with their flying ability comes the power to generate a medium-size whirlwind, which is pretty neat. While it takes a round to build it up and disperse it, it can be used to sweep away all creatures of 2 hit die or less… which means 2nd level characters are going to be affected and, well, maybe it isn’t that dangerous for seasoned adventurers. The description goes on to state that Djinni fight as giants, but what does that mean exactly? Giants like to slam things with their fists and are described as catapults that carry around a bag of rocks to throw at people. Assuming a Djinni doesn’t carry around rocks in its pockets, though it might have 6,000 gp for some reason, they will punch you like a giant with a -1 penalty, doing 1-11 damage on a hit, or 2d6 - 1 damage. Dice notation hadn’t yet been a thing at this point. If you don’t upset a Djinni to the point where they feel the need to punch you or fling you around in a whirlwind, you’ll find out that they can be impressive party hosts since they can create quite tasty food. With any good meal, you’ll need a refreshing drink, and the Djinni can also create some alcoholic beverages. It sounds like they can be quite the life of the party, so why not make friends with a Djinni instead of trying to kill it? Food and drink aren’t the only things that the Djinni can make, as they can create soft and wooden goods that last forever… we guess this is like their version of granting wishes so long as the only thing you wish for is food, cloth, and wood? No definition of soft goods is provided, so one can only assume that such items could range from soft fluffy pillows to a set of fine clothes. You might be disappointed that your new best friend can only create beautiful clothes and pudding, but the Djinni can also create metallic objects. Unfortunately, they are not permanent, and the harder the metal created is, the shorter its lifespan is. A Djinni can create gold, but it only lasts for a single day, so as the old saying goes, spend it if you got it because you can’t take it with you - and then get out of town as fast as possible as you are about to have a very upset city. We can only assume that disappearing gold coins was Gary Gygax’s way to screw with his players, but that’s just us being crotchety. The final ability for the Djinni is that they can cast illusions that target hearing and sound, at the same time, as much as they want. Which is pretty useful into tricking people into liking you, but that with the fact it creates fake gold just paints the Djinni in a bad light. They just create the illusion of wealth around them, and then skip out of town before anyone realizes that everything is fake and the Djinni is just a con artist.
Basic D&D - Djinni
The Djinni appears in the Holmes Box Set (1974), followed by the Moldvay/Cook Expert Rules (1981), and in the BECMI Expert Rules (1983). The one thing that all three editions agree upon is that the Djinni is wicked smart, independent, and unconstrained… oh, and that it's a genie. The Holmes Djinni lifts its wording from OD&D with a few clarifications like the whirlwind attack now deals damage to creatures who aren’t instantly swept aside, and killed, by the Djinni’s attack. Also, they can carry double their 6,000 gold weight limit for 3 rounds before they get tired, which isn’t that impressive. This whirlwind damage carries through all three of the Basic versions, answering the question of how much a whirlwind hurts when it slams into you. Though in the latter two versions for the Lesser Djinni, we’ll get there, it does take 5 rounds to actually get in and out of whirlwind form, and at that point - why even bother? You’ll just be standing there getting smacked around by swords, magic missiles, and more while you try to proclaim the immense amount of pain that everyone is heading for once you get spinning fast enough. While the later versions do get a bit better for the Djinni, as plain old weapons no longer hurt them and you need a fancy +1 weapon or have an arsenal of spells to throw at them, they do drop off on their utility and abilities by quite a bit. Now, the Djinni only has its normal 7 powers and their uses per day are drastically changed from unlimited to three times a day. As a reminder, those powers are: create food and drink, create metallic objects of temporary duration based on hardness to a maximum of 1000 lbs, create permanent soft goods and wooden objects to a maximum of 1000 lbs, become invisible, assume gaseous form, or form itself into a whirlwind as previously mentioned above. While the Djinni can still create illusions, that’s not really as good as the real thing. While the Djinni doesn’t have much new going for them, we are introduced to the Lesser Djinni and the Greater Djinni. Everything we’ve talked about so far has been focused on the abilities of the Lesser Djinni and provides a solid understanding for their greater versions. These Djinni are the rulers of the Djinni, with the most powerful among them being the rulers on the Elemental Plane of Air and are known as pashas. These beings appear as especially large Djinni, have all the same powers that they can use as often as they want, and can cast lightning bolts, finger of death, wish, cloudkill, water to gas, and weather control. The most important thing to focus on this is that they can cast wish! Though they can only do it for others and not for themselves, which is fine by us seeing as how we can’t cast wish. These Greater Djinni only travel to the Material Plane when Lesser Djinni cry out after being harmed or mistreated by others, which seems a bit of a wuss move. It’s the Djinni’s fault for making illusions and tricking people, if they can’t handle consequences, they shouldn’t be getting themselves in trouble! To add insult to injury, even if you were able to “kill” a Djinni, there is no corpse to loot as it immediately returns to the Plane of Air. This is problematic seeing as how the Djinni carries on them up to 6,000 gold pieces, and if we are going to go to the trouble of beating one of them up, we should at least get to rob them after a job well done!
AD&D - Djinni
The Djinni appears in the Monster Manual (1977) with just a few tweaks to its abilities. The term Aerial Plane replaces the Elemental Plane of Air, but they are effectively the same place, which we will get to. The big flashy attack for the Djinni remains the whirlwind, which takes 1 round to form, 1 round to damage, and then 1 round to dissipate. We aren’t experts at AD&D but we feel like the three rounds necessary to hit people with a whirlwind for 2d6 damage, and killing anyone with 2 hit die or less, isn’t a great trade-off, especially as it can just punch you for 2d8 damage once per turn. If you have a whole army with you, the Djinni can move 24”, which is either 240 feet while you are in a dungeon or 240 yards if you happen to be outside. That can be quite the devastating blow to an army, so it definitely has some niche uses, though we have to wonder how many armies are waging a war on a Djinni. Some of its other abilities get fancy new titles but essentially remain the same. Food is now nutritious, and beverages are wine or water, but each can only feed up to 12 people. When it creates its soft, wood, or metal items, the limitations on the amounts are adjusted to fit within the terms in the version's rules. Illusions remain, as does turning into a cloud of gas and going invisible. It does get the new ability to wind walk, but that is just how it turns its body into cloud-like vapors. The Djinni are lucky enough to travel the Elemental Planes, as well as visiting the Astral Plane whenever they want. All of this, along with their time spent on the Material Plane, makes them quite the wanderers. There is some information about the societal structure within the Djinni culture, as they are ruled by a Caliph, along with a series of various nobles who serve it. Noble Djinni are more powerful than their common counterparts and are as strong as the efreet, with 10 hit dice, additional 1d8 punching damage, and an even more deadly whirlwind that does 3d6 damage. At long last, we finally get to the main reason we are hunting for the Djinni, they can now grant us a wish, three of them to be exact. Djinni can be captured, but it is a challenging thing to do, which is left to the DM to determine how exactly do such a thing. Once you capture one, a kind and benevolent master can coax more out of a captive Djinni, while a cruel jerk won’t motivate them to do more than the bare minimum. There is a 1% chance that a captured Djinni will be a noble type, having the ability to grant three wishes. It’s a minuscule chance, but some chance is better than none at all. Upon granting the third wish, the Djinni is set free, and you gotta hope you were nice to them or your army is very, very, very far away. While the text states nothing about what happens upon gaining its freedom, we imagine it’s probably not too happy about being forced into servitude. The Djinni make a grand appearance in the Manual of the Planes (1987) where we learn about their elemental home plane, known as the Plane of Air, as well as their society and castles. The Djinni settle on earth motes that make their way to the plane, building beautiful castles and buildings of cloud-like materials and soaring structures. They are ruled over by a series of caliphs who oversee all Djinni within two days of travel of their castles. They are at war often with the forces of the Dao and Efreet, who hate the Djinni and dislike their good-aligned nature, though the Marid, of the Plane of Water, will at least trade with them without trying to kill them. As a small side note, the Djinni and Efreet are the first genies to be featured in this edition’s Monster Manual while the Dao and Marid must wait until the Fiend Folio (1981). This has no real barring, but if you are ever in a trivia quiz about obscure monsters released in 30-year-old Monster Manuals, you can now impress the rest of your group with your useless knowledge!
2e - Djinni (Genie)
The Djinni next shows up in the Monstrous Compendium Volume One (1989) and is reprinted in the Monstrous Manual (1993). The Djinni now fall under the genie classification, which includes such creatures as the dao and efreeti. They are the second weakest of the genie, with the dao being of equal strength and the jann being the weakest. That does not mean the Djinni are not to be feared, as these creatures from the Elemental Plane of Air and are still a force to be reckoned with. On the Plane of Air, these majestic genies live luxuriously on floating islands. Each island is anywhere from a few 1,000 yards across to a few miles filled with tall spires, large buildings, and are ruled by a sheik, with various nobles assisting them. The caliph is near the top of the Djinni social structure and they rule over all djinni estates within two days travel of its home, with all the sheik within that radius owing allegiance to it. While we don’t recommend attacking Djinni estates, if you do decide to capture yourself a genie to get a few wishes, they have a messenger chain that will alert the caliphate and all the neighboring islands who will send out large numbers of troops to hunt you down. Hopefully one of your wishes is to leave the Plane of Air alive. Nothing too exciting changes for the Djinni’s and its mechanical abilities. The most interesting change is made to the Djinni’s whirlwind ability and made it slightly better than three rounds and then that’s it. The whirlwind retains all the destructive force it had previously but now lasts as long as the Djinni wants and goes where ever the Djinni wills it. We love how the text states that the whirlwind moves at the Djinni’s whim, as it has that cat toying with a mouse feeling to it. Also, the Djinni can ride around on a whirlwind if they so desire. Seventy feet in the air is a much better vantage point for it to watch the winds buffet you to death. If you’re on friendly terms with the Djinni, it can even take you and 5 or your closest medium-sized friends along for the ride. If you can fly yourself, whether through wings or magic, the Djinni pity you, viewing your reliance on such methods a bit pathetic, which seems a bit much seeing as how they need a whirlwind to fly. If you are hoping to capture a Djinni, the act of catching and capturing one is still up to the DM, all we know is that it should be difficult. You still want to be nice to it so it will do nice things for you, which is kind of weird if we are being honest. If we get captured, we don’t really care how nice you are, you still captured us when all we wanted to do was go home to play Dungeons & Dragons with our friends. We’re going to be jerks regardless of how you treat us, though the Monster Manual states that Djinni will treat you as you treat them. Be nice, they’ll be nice. Be a jerk, they’ll do everything they can to screw up your plan and get you killed. If you can catch a Djinni, there is a tiny chance you'll catch a Noble Djinni, about one percent, and then you’ve hit the jackpot. These Djinni won’t do anything but grant you three wishes, and upon granting the third and final wish, they are then free and run off into the sunset on their whirlwind. 2nd Edition also introduces the Al-Qadim campaign setting with the Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures and Al-Qadim: Land of Fate (1992) sourcebooks that provide ways of playing in an Arabic setting. This area is called Zakhara and is located on a peninsula on the continent of Faerun, blending the One Thousand and One Nights stories with a more cinematic focus towards it. Throughout all the texts within this campaign setting, the Djinni appears, bringing a bit more information to flesh them out. In the Land of Fate, the Djinni are given a bit more information on their society as well as how they interact with mortals. They are ruled over by the Great Caliph, Commander of the Four Winds, Defender of the Heavens, Master of the Air, and other titles to let you know that he isn’t someone you want to mess around with. Most Djinni are easy-going and pay little heed to strict rules or societal structures as they find that to be too confining. Even their existing rules are a bit too restrictive for most of them and so they will travel from the Plane of Air to the Material World where they will journey through the expanse of the desert to relax and unwind on their vacation. If they stumble across some mortals, they may play a few pranks on them, though they make sure to not be too cruel in case the creature has some sort of connection to the Great Caliph that they don’t realize. This is especially true for powerful individuals, like sultans or kings and so they make sure to keep their tricks to themselves at that point. The Djinni often travel across the desert to talk to their cousin genie-kin, the jann, with who they have a great relationship. They don’t share this relationship with the others, though they are at least respectful of the marid. The dao and efreeti are immediately attacked, especially if the Djinni has conned some adventurer to help them kill their sworn enemies. The Monstrous Compendium Al-Qadim Appendix (1992) introduces us to the beings known as the gen and the Noble Djinni. The gen are small elemental genies, each a smaller version of the more powerful genie in their world. The air gen are known as the Djinnling and serve special mages in the Land of Fate, the Sha’ir. They are part familiar, a part conduit for elemental magic, and the Sha’ir cannot use spells without the wind gen, so while they are small in stature, their importance is huge. There is also a stat block and a detailed description of the elusive Noble Djinni. They are more powerful than we originally thought, with stats and abilities that dwarf the common Djinni. Their spell-like abilities are more terrifying, as a Noble Djinni also has at their disposal gust of wind at will, cloudkill once per day, control weather once per week, and airwalk on up to seven other creatures once per day. Once per year, a Noble Djinni can cast windtomb, which is a horrifying spell in case you were hoping we meant misspelled tome. When cast on a living creature, they are entombed, entering a suspended animation state similar to a temporal stasis spell, meaning you stop aging and life continues on without you until someone gets you out. Just in case you are thinking of trying to counterspell any of these, you should know that Noble Djinni magic is cast as if at the 20th level of ability. This windtomb appears like a swirling mass of air and if you try to breach it, you are just tossed aside like you are fighting a tornado. Only the Noble Djinni who created the windtomb can disperse it, so you might want to find some gems or something to bribe them. Noble Djinni travel with quite the entourage and we recommend not getting in their way. When on the Plane of Air, they are always accompanied by up to 40 common Djinni who act as their courtiers, soldiers, fan-bearers, minstrels, grooms, and servants. When they are found on the Material Plane, Noble Djinni prefer to fly, a sight that is terrifying as their whirlwind and dozens more roar across the desert sands. If that is not possible, they will be carried by either an elephant, camel or a rich palanquin carried by four servants. Touching the ground is beneath them, and their feet will never touch the ground on purpose. They are proud and pompous beings, demanding that they be treated in a fashion that aligns with their noble status. All of this is not to say they cannot be captured, but you better have some powerful magic at your disposal as there are no physical means to enslave a Noble Djinni. They will grant three wishes to their master, but they are set free after the third wish and you better hope they don’t hold a grudge. Also, in the Al-Qadim setting is the Secrets of the Lamp (1993), a sourcebook for adventures in the land of Al-Qadim as well as providing detailed information about the genie. We know that the Djinni hate the efreeti with the passion of a thousand white-hot suns, but now we find out the reason behind that hatred. The efreeti will take Djinni as slaves, which really ticks them off as one can imagine, though the Djinni might also take mortal slaves so, a bit of a double standard there. The Djinni will take every opportunity to harm the efreeti and work with anyone seeking to do so, even tricking them if it's required. The Djinni also have servants of air elementals, brass dragons, giant eagles, and other flying creatures who reside in the Plane of Air, and will often rely on their allies to help them when it comes to attacking the dao and efreeti. We also have a name to go with the Great Caliph, Husam al-Balil ben Nafhat al-Yugayyim, Master of the Clouds, and Son of the Breezes. Quite a mouthful! His palace is the Citadel of Ice and Steel located on the Plane of Air, and he only leaves to go hunting or bring a bit of mischief to the Land of Fate. From here, he rules over the other Djinni freeholds spread out in his elemental plane. He is constantly surrounded by a group of his courtiers, from dancers and entertainers to supplicants and petitioners. His court also includes up to 400 jann and as many as 100 common Djinni, all at his command. Our last type of Djinni appears in the Monstrous Compendium Annual Volume One (1994) and is one of the tasked genies. Tasked genie are genies who have been doing one job for so long, that their form has morphed and augmented itself to best fill that role and do their duties. The most common form of tasked genie that a Djinni could become are the Administrator Tasked Genie, the Deceiver Tasked Genie, and the Messenger Tasked Genie. The Administrators are in charge of ensuring that organizations and governments continue functioning to their best extent, and it is thought that they all come from the same family of Djinni or marid genies as they all refer to each other as family, claiming that they have a cousin, brother, or sister that can help pull strings in their various governmental functions to keep things moving for those who beseech, and bribe, them for help. The Deceivers are servants of the Noble Djinni who use deception and lies to help their masters. They must be constantly given tasks or else their idleness leads them to begin rumors and lies about their masters, causing many issues for the Noble Djinni who oversee them. They are often used to create disinformation attacks on other Noble Djinni or to cause mayhem for the efreeti and dao. Our final tasked genie are the Messengers who once only served the Djinni but now serve every genie equally. They flit from plane to plane, delivering messages to all genie with little care for politics. They have a short lifespan, at only 10 to 15 years, but they are in constant movement and hate not having a task at hand. Our final book for this edition doesn’t bring in any new Djinni but simply adds more information on the Djinni in the Plane of Air. The Inner Planes (1998) focuses on each of the elemental planes and how they function in relationship to the other Inner Planes, as well as the Outer Planes and the Material Plane. The Djinni can, of course, be found on the Plane of Air, and live in mostly independent freeholds ruled by the caliphs, sheik, sheriffs, and maliks. The Djinni are at almost constant war with not only the efreeti and dao, but also cloud and storm giants who think they should rule the Plane of Air. Many believe that the Djinni are too arrogant, making it so that they seem to be fighting almost every inhabitant of the Plane of Air, which makes it rather problematic to actually deal with them. They are open to visitors to their realm but expect everyone to treat them with the proper respect that they believe they deserve.
3e/3.5e - Djinni
The Djinni appears in the Monster Manual (2000/2003) and well, we aren’t saying that 3rd edition mailed it in, but the Djinni don’t have much going for them in this edition. We can take some solace that only the Djinni and the efreeti show up in the first Monster Manual, while the dao and marid have to wait until… well, they don’t actually show up in any of the five Monster Manuals but instead show up in the supplement book, Manual of the Planes (2001), which isn’t great. But at least the Djinni is special enough to make it! Almost everything remains the same as the previous version, with the terms and numbers being adjusted to fit 3e, and in fact, a lot of the wording is just lifted from the previous editions. As a running theme, the only real change comes from the whirlwind. Djinni find melee combat beneath them and prefer to use their magic in combat, which means they are going to use their whirlwind whenever possible. If they use their whirlwind so it is touching the ground, you don’t only have to deal with a sentient whirlwind trying to kill you, but also you have to deal with the cloud of debris that heavily obscures the whirlwind and all creatures inside of it. Let’s say you are brave and not scared of a sentient whirlwind, if you are struck by it, you are then picked up and suspended in powerful winds, automatically taking damage every round. You can take your normal turn at this point, but you can’t move inside of it unless you want to try and break free of the whirlwind, but you aren’t a wuss. Instead, you can stab the whirlwind and try to kill the Djinni that way, which only imposes a -2 penalty on your attack roll and nothing else. We would’ve thought that wind was a bit harder to hit than that, but we haven’t been able to conduct our The Wizard of Oz LARP yet to experiment. The Djinni next show up in the Manual of the Planes, where it goes over their role in the Plane of Air and how they live quite opulently. Each Djinni stronghold houses up to 30 Djinni, otherwise, it is stocked with servants, pets, or guardians who protect their Djinni masters as much as possible. They are still ruled over by a sheik, who may or may not be a Noble Djinni, who still grants up to three wishes, and still rely on each other if they are ever attacked. One weird thing about the Djinni is that many raise livestock, but mostly horses for racing, which seems like the wrong creature you want racing through the Plane of Air when a roc or griffon might be a better option. Then again, Djinni find creatures with wings to be offensive because they have to work so hard to fly while the Djinni just do, which is anathema to their lifestyle and relationship to the wind and air. There isn’t much else in 3rd edition, but one thing worth sharing is in The Lost Empires of Faerun (2005) which tells the story of the noble Djinni Calim and his empire in the southern lands of Toril. Claiming the lands where modern-day Calimport stands, Calim defended his empire from dragons, the dao, and marids, defeating them all. He negotiated with the neighboring dwarves and elves to solidify the borders of his land. The land prospered until the arrival of the efreeti Memmon. The two fought, decimating the lands and killing countless genies and various humanoids that had the bad luck of settling in and around Calim’s empire. Eventually, the nearby elves had had enough, and they used their combined magic to disembody both Calim and Memmon, binding their essences to the sky and earth, respectively. They continue to fight in this state even today in the Calim desert, a part of Calim’s ancient empire that was once fertile plains, but now is only a wasteland of burnt sand. Elven wards prevent the two genie lords from leaving the Calim Desert, but that doesn’t prevent them from continuing their eternal struggle against one another.
4e - Djinni (Thunderer)
Relegated to the Monster Manual 2 (2009), we can take some solace since we get 4 types of Djinni… and all the other genie, except for the efreeti, are screwed over. A quick bit of new lore is established, as we find out that the Djinni was allied with the primordials during the centuries-long conflict against the gods known as the Dawn War. Upon the primordials defeat, the gods turned their ire on the Djinni, imprisoning many of them to this day in towers, mirrors, lamps, and other lowly relics. The four Djinni featured in this book are the Thunderer, Stormsword, Windbow, and the Skylord. The Thunderer, as you can probably ascertain from the name, use thunder as their primary attack. They dislike fighting in the melee and will teleport far away from their enemies and call on storms to destroy them. The Stormsword is the opposite and actually wants to be in melee, using a special ability to pull enemies closer to it so it can cut through them with its scimitar. While the Stormsword does have the ability to hit you from far away, it only does so to pin you in place so that it rushes you and begins attacking you with its scimitar. After you’ve defeated those two, you still have to worry about the Windbow who also likes to stay far away and pepper its enemies with its bow. It can knock back its opponents or go into melee where it smites down with the power of thunder and wind. If you somehow find the will to keep fighting the Djinni after this, there is one more to defeat, and they are the worst of the bunch. The Skylord is focused on battlefield control and summons sandstorms, hail, elements, and more to buffet and disorient its opponents. If forced to fight it swings its storm staff, bashing its opponents with the power of wind as it moves further away behind its front line of Djinni fighters. In the supplement The Plane Below - Secrets of the Elemental Chaos (2009), we get some new lore about what the Djinni was all about before the Dawn War rocked the multiverse. Before the Dawn War, they were creatures of great intellect, loved fine art, and lived noble lives, capable of crafting everything and anything of pure beauty out of the Elemental Chaos. The Djinni was the most advanced of the genie races, living the high life in the massive sky cities amongst the clouds. A majority of these magnificent palaces were destroyed during the Dawn War or afterward by the vengeful gods who they warred against. These castles' ruins can still be found floating aimlessly throughout the plane, crumbling after centuries of neglect. The one city the survived this fate was the First City. After the war, the gods expelled all of its citizens, and it now floats aimlessly and abandoned. The Djinni believe that if they can find the city, and release one of the many imprisoned caliphs, it will return them to their former glory, undoing the damage done by the gods and allowing them to release all the imprisoned Djinni scattered throughout the planes. This book also features Sirrajadt, the Vengeful Storm, a Djinni who is the last of an ancient and crumbling noble house. He thirsts to destroy the gods and mortals who worship them, vowing to destroy them all. He frees Djinni only to increase the size of his army, so that he can continue his wars against the efreeti and gods. He doesn’t believe in the First City and thinks anyone trying to release all the Djinni by using the First City are delusional at best. We are also presented with the Cloudstalker, a Djinni who specializes in attacking foes while they are unaware. The Cloudstalker lashes out from cover, bashing their enemies aside and then they turn into a cloud, hoping to confuse their enemies so they can sweep in and attack again when they least suspect it. Our last Djinni shows up in the Player’s Options - Heroes of the Elemental Chaos (2012) which features the Djinnling! You might remember these gen servants from 2nd edition where they travel with a sha’ir, a type of elemental wizard that a player character can become. While the sha’ir is a type of wizard and they have a lot of their feats and abilities, they have a few wizard abilities exchanged for more control over the elements. One of those trade-offs is that they get a gen servant, like a Djinnling, who travels into the Elemental Chaos every day when you rest and brings your elemental powers to you at the start of the next day. These familiars have a variety of different powers like the Djinnling can move creatures near it and push them further away from it. We mentioned earlier that the Djinni aren’t as screwed as the dao and marid, so we will briefly mention why it sucks to be one of those genie. Those two genie don’t show up in the sourcebooks but brief mentions and don’t gain stat blocks until Dungeon #199 (February, 2012) where they have to share 6 pages about their history, stat blocks, and motivations in the Elemental Chaos. While 4e might not as been good for the Djinni like 2e was, it could always be worse.
5e - Djinni
The Djinni shows up again, and this time with much fanfare in the Monster Manual (2014). Not only are they more powerful than in previous editions, a rare thing for most of the monsters we look at, but they get a decent amount of lore that paints them in a mostly positive light. They are still from the Plane of Air and live in castles of splendor and wonder, complete with fabulous works of art, opulent gardens, and fountains on this plane. They feast on fine wines and succulent foods, so if you can get an invite to a Djinni party, we recommend going. They are described as handsome and muscular, with blue skin and dark eyes. Their dress is fancy, made of silk and other rich fabrics. This edition returns their whirlwind, though now they don’t become the whirlwind, but simply create one that they can control, but there isn’t much reason to do so. All it does is restrain creatures instead of bludgeoning them to death, it's pretty handy against single creatures but against a party of adventurers, might as well turn invisible and wander off. Even against a single creature, it can be a pain as they have no ranged attacks available to them, so it’s a bit of a weird ability for the Djinni who don’t want to get physical with other creatures and see combat as below them. Many of the same abilities from the first editions still show up, they can make food, make shiny metal objects with set durations for each type of item you create, wind walk, and more. They can even conjure an air elemental, shoot off a wave of thunder, and can now determine if you are a good or evil creature, so that’s handy when you aren’t sure if the horrifying creature in front of you is an aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead, though you don’t know what specifically they are, which is super helpful. Looking at the lore of the Djinni, we learn that Djinni don’t like being slaves but they’ll accept it as a matter of fate. How you treat the Djinni is important, for being kind, bribing, and all forms of flattery work well on our vain friend. This is how they treat their slaves and see it as how all of those enslaved should be treated. What’s odd about this edition is that it doubles down on the ideas that all genies are slavers, providing more information that the Djinni are the kindest to their slaves and treat them well, so long as they continue to be good slaves and tell the Djinni how awesome they are. Did we mention that the Djinni, and other genie, are complete narcissists who demand that their slaves tell them how great they are constantly? It goes further than that as they find religious folks completely intolerable. While they don't hate the gods, they don't recognize them as the supreme authorities. They act with respect towards them, but find the mewling worship of mortals tiresome... unless that constant mewling is directed towards them. They really like to hear how awesome they are, over and over. It's said that the praise of 200 slaves is music to them. This edition has a real fascination with making these genies just horrible creatures to deal with. Since great wizards can summon and bind them through their magic, they don’t have to be kind to get the Djinni to do what they want. As you can imagine, Djinni are not very fond of wizards, as they can be unkind and demanding masters. Please don’t keep the Djinni bound too long, as they will become resentful, and an angry Djinni is not a Djinni that is good for your health. If you dare betray a Djinni, look out, as its wraith knows no bounds, its lust for vengeance only satisfied by your painful death. Besides, if you are looking for a wish granting genie, it’s going to take a while as only a very rare few ever have that ability. The Djinni have little to do in 5th edition, but it does show up in the adventure Princes of the Apocalypse (2015) where it is toiling away and rebuilding an ancient dwarven city, a task given to it by its cruel masters. It’s a shame that such an interesting being doesn’t make more appearances in this edition, even just showing up as a random encounter in something like Tomb of Annihilation (2017) or Dungeon of the Mad Mage (2018) would have at least given it a bit more depth for this edition. The last thing we will leave you with on the Djinni is a weird thing that this edition introduced, which is how genies are created. When someone dies, and their soul has such a strong bond to an element, it can go into the Inner Planes where it will merge with the elements there. Once it does so, in very rare situations, it might create a genie. That's it. No getting down to make babies, as genies can't make more of their kind. They just have to hope someone really loves breathing air and somehow get their soul to merge with the elements of their plane. The poor Djinni have appeared throughout Dungeons & Dragons though it always seems to be in the shadow of the efreeti, or not shown much respect at all. While you may get some wishes out of the creatures, it’s not a likely outcome. If you do find yourself confronted by a Djinni, just make sure to treat them nicely and remember to talk about how awesome they are, they’ll probably not pick you up in a whirlwind and chuck you across the desert then!
Splendor definition is - great brightness or luster : brilliancy. How to use splendor in a sentence. ‘It is an occasion celebrated with pomp and splendor, starting with colourful marches followed by vibrant speeches.’ ‘This tour of past splendor only magnified the shock I received later when I heard the news, and saw the reactions all around me.’ splendour definition: 1. great beauty that attracts admiration and attention: 2. the beautiful features or qualities of…. Learn more. View spelling list Words ending in or and learn about the word splendor in the Spellzone English spelling course, Unit 25. Word endings: -er, -ar, -or, -our, re, a and -ery, -ary. Scrabble score for splendor. Scrabble score = 11. Please note that scrabble only allows seven tiles to be placed at once. generated at 12:10:37 on 17-09-20. Spelling www.use-in-a-sentence.com English words and Examples of Usage use "splendor" in a sentence The Yevethan political and military leader Nil Spaar, commander of the formerly Imperial Super Star Destroyer Pride of Yevetha, immediately brought the Yevethan flagship and the Interdictor Cruiser splendor of Yevetha on an intercept course. Released in 1627, this was his creation of an Noun. a quality that outshines the usual ; the quality of being magnificent or splendid or grand ; Thesaurus. brilliance brilliancy grandeur grandness luster lustre magnificence splendor Spellzone course content. View spelling list Words ending in our and learn about the word splendour in the Spellzone English spelling course, Unit 25. Word endings: -er, -ar, -or, -our, re, a and -ery, -ary. ‘He stared up at the magnificent splendor of a truly Roman city, its grand architecture and its air of power and determination.’ ‘It's another thing to be out in creation in some way or another and experience and encounter God's beauty or majesty or splendor or power.’ Splendor definition, brilliant or gorgeous appearance, coloring, etc.; magnificence: the splendor of the palace. See more.
About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators ... I will be cancelled in twitter for 14 days, good luck to me!Spelling bee but Its the N word, see how this 14 year old reacts being cancelled Visit SU&SD for more cardboard antics: http://bit.ly/SUSDMachiVsSplendorBuy Machi Koro: http://bit.ly/BuyMachiKoro // Buy Splendor: http://bit.ly/BuySplendor... Provided to YouTube by Independent DigitalSplendor in the World · Thunderstorm Sound Bank · Rain Sounds & White Noise · Calming Sounds · Cam DutJust Rain Zen... Provided to YouTube by Independent DigitalSplendor in the World · Thunderstorm Sound Bank · Calming Sounds · Rain Sounds & White Noise · Cam DutRainy Morning... Reacts: angelina jordan - i put a spell on you i guys, i really did enjoyed listening and reacting to this song, i hope you enjoy it as much as i did. PLEASE... About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators ... Tom Vasel takes a look at the board game Splendor.00:00 - Introduction01:00 - Game Overview04:23 - Final ThoughtsBuy great games at http://www.coolstuffinc.c... Voice Teacher Reaction to Angelina Jordan - I Put a Spell On You -- Vocal coach, Valerie White Williams, reacts to Angelina Jordan singing, I Put a Spell On ... Provided to YouTube by Independent DigitalSplendor in the World with Thunder · Nature Sounds · Relaxing Music Therapy · Rain Sound Studio · Cam DutThunder an...
